I was reading today about how Linux Mint developers altered the Banshee music player source code to redirect affiliate revenue from Amazon music orders to them instead of Banshee. They've reportedly made less than $4, which has caused a kerfluffle among those paying attention to that corner of the world. But it raises a larger point that has been swirling around for a couple of decades: an OS vendor has a lot of power to influence, and even monetize their user base. Where should they draw the line?

It would be relatively trivial, technologically, for Microsoft or Apple or Google to silently demand a cut of some or all commerce transacted on their platform, as Linux Mint did.

And because they don't ? We are in 2011, not 2006. And since then, Apple has launched the appstore, first for iphone, and now for all their computers. And Apple is restricting purchases on their device to purchase made on the appstore. They have not taken the step to firewall web shops, but they do block application that allow to buy directly from the application instead of using the appstore: http://www.splatf.com/2011/07/kindle-screenshots/ .

And Microsoft is taking that road. Google does not (yet), because google's revenue model is based on advertisement.

I could bare to see a little more curation under Google's watch though. Apple's heavy handed marketing vetting and lacking security vetting is too much but Google's cavaleer "upload keys to the kingdom" aproach is far too unregulated given the amount of malware being pumped into repositories. Something closer to how Maemo repositories where managed would due; software was not blocked in the basis of competing with a Nokia/Maemo build function bit it did have to wait in the development repository until proven stable and unmalicious.